Three
by I Heard A Voice
Summary: All he asked for was a dance lesson. HPCD. T for minor slash. Read, review, enjoy. Ignore the title at the heading of the story, I had a change of mind about the title once it had been put up here :s


Title: Angels

Rating: T for minor slash

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the **Harry Potter** franchise. I also don't own the song "Angels" by Robbie Williams.

Summary and pairing: All he asked for was a dance lesson. Harry/Cedric.

Author's note: I wrote this based on the final line of "Angels", which is "I'm loving angels instead", but the whole song fits. I have to stress that this is not a songfic. Read, review and enjoy!

* * *

"Cedric?" The Hufflepuff 7th year turned to find the person who called his name, and found himself face to face with Harry.

"Harry, hi," he said, confused. "What's up?"

"Can I ask you a favour?" Harry asked, nervously twisting his scarf around his neck.

"Is it about the Tournament? Because I can't tell you much more than I already have, that's all I know, Harry..."

"No, no, it's not to do with tasks..." Harry shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Bewildered and vaguely amused, Cedric asked, "Well, what is it?" Harry looked around them to check that no one he knew was standing near to them.

"I need to learn how to dance," he mumbled. "I mean, I know how to do the first dance. Just," he added and smiled nervously. "But it's the dancing that's not to a set routine I don't know, and I was just wondering..."

Cedric cut in to prevent the 4th year's embarrassment getting any worse. "Come to the common room for the Head Boy and Girl at 9.30. The Head Girl won't be in, so it'll just be us two. Second floor, it's the portrait of Lady Tunney."

"Cedric... Thank you so much."

"Don't mention it," he said, patting Harry on the shoulder in what he thought was an older-brotherly way. "My password is," Cedric flushed slightly, a faint pinkish blush spreading across his cheeks, "Cho." Harry felt a surge of adrenalin at the mention of her name and blushed too. "I know, it's stupid," Cedric said, "but it seemed right at the time."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't know," Harry said, not intending to sound even remotely as bitter as he did.

"Mm," Cedric said uncomfortably. "Err... Have you got a date yet?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"No, not yet." Harry's tone was short and sharp and bad tempered. Why was he acting like such a child? Cedric was only trying to make conversation, there was no reason for him to be so horrible.

"Anybody in mind?"

"Well, I did but... She's going with someone else."

Cedric sighed. "Yeah, she told me about that," he said, looking away from Harry's piercing green eyes. There was an awkward silence. "Well, I should go... Lunch, and all... I said I'd meet Cho, so.." he trailed off.

"Yeah, absolutely," Harry said cheerfully, over compensating for how short he'd been with him before.

"See you," Cedric said, smiling. "Don't forget."

"I won't."

Half past nine arrived faster than Harry wanted it to, and it was much harder than he'd anticipated to get away from his common room without others asking where he was going. After finally managing to escape, he found himself standing outside a portrait of a fat woman with a dog dressed as a clown perched on her lap. As he was removing his Invisibility Cloak and preparing to say the password, the portrait swung open and Cedric poked his head through the portrait hole.

"Come in," he said, offering a hand. Harry accepted it and scrambled in.

"That portrait is..."  
"I know. Hideous, isn't it? We've begged Dumbledore to let us change it, but he won't. Apparently it's like a tradition- every Head Boy and Girl asks him to change it and he always says no." Cedric laughed. "Do, um, do you want a drink?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," Harry said, suddenly aware of how thirsty he was. Cedric found two bottles of Butterbeer and opened them, handing one to Harry. "Cheers."

"Cheers," Cedric seconded. The two downed their drinks and occasionally caught each other's eye and smiled nervously. "So, um... What kind of dance don't you erm... I mean, what type of dancing do you need to practice?"

Harry sighed. "All of them." Cedric laughed and shook his head.

"You don't want to come here every night until the Ball, do you?" Harry emphatically shook his head no. "Then you're going to have to narrow them down a bit, Harry."

"Um... Slow dances. I-I don't..."

"I expected that," Cedric said. "Most people are unsure about that kind of dancing. And with good reason, really. It's very intimate, it's often how a lot of people end up dating, you know... I'm not surprised in the slightest," he said, not unkindly. Harry smiled, embarrassed, and looked very pointedly at his shoes. "Right," Cedric said brightly. "There are two types of slow dance. There's one, where she wraps her arms around your neck and you wrap yours around her waist, hands on hips, no lower, unless you're going out or get grabby when you're drunk," he said smiling. "That one's relatively easy to pick up. The other is... Well, it's easier to show you. Here, I'll be the boy, you can be the girl."

"Cedric, can you please not refer to me as 'the girl', I feel stupid enough already."

"My partner?"

"Worse."

"Fine. I'll be the leader, and you're the follower." They laughed. "Okay. Put your left hand on my right shoulder, um... Kind of reach under my arm and rest it on my shoulder, so your hand is facing towards you." Harry tentatively did so, and Cedric wrapped his right arm around Harry's waist, resting his hand in the small of his back. This action inadvertently pulled the two closer together, and Harry jerked back from the sudden intimacy of the situation. "Relax, Harry," Cedric said smiling. "Now, um, hold my hand." Harry hesitated. "Come on, the sooner you do it, the sooner we can let go." Harry grabbed Cedric's free hand but Cedric let go. "No, no no. You're not holding it strongly enough, hold it tighter." Harry did so and Cedric shook his head and shook his hand free. "Too tight. It's all about balance. You've got to hold it tight enough that you won't end up relying on your arm on her waist to keep you together, but not so tight that she loses the feeling in her hand."

Harry reached for Cedric's hand again but he stopped him. "Don't rush it. Just take a deep breath and be gentle. We've got plenty of time," he said. Harry took a deep breath as instructed and carefully wrapped his small hand around Cedric's larger one, feeling the callouses on his palm from clutching a broomstick. He could feel Cedric's eyes on his and looked up. "Just like that," Cedric said softly. The two stayed like that for longer than was probably necessary, getting used to the surface of each other's hands, becoming more comfortable with how close together they were, closer than Harry had been with a girl before. "Right," Cedric said, and they moved away from each other quickly, Harry looking at the floor, Cedric playing with a curl at the nape of his neck, both out of nerves and sudden awareness of just how close they had been. "Um, I'm going to put the music on and we'll see if you can take my place." He went to a coffee table where a Muggle CD player sat.

"I thought..."

"I um, I managed to get past the block. But it's just for tonight, so make the most of it." He turned it on. "Now, this is a compilation CD so I don't know what song it is, or what it's like, so I apologise in advance." He laughed nervously and pressed play. The opening bars of "Angels" by Robbie Williams began, and Cedric walked over to where Harry was standing. Cedric gently wrapped his arm around Harry's arm and Harry hesitantly wrapped his arm around Cedric's waist, and carefully pulled him closer in, taking Cedric's spare hand carefully.

"Put your hand in the small of the back," he instructed. "It's intimate without being too forward." Harry did so and Cedric smiled

"Now what do I do?" Harry asked, unprepared for the wobble in his voice.

"Just... Follow the music. Shift your weight from foot to foot, and gently turn us around." As they slowly swayed to the music, Harry felt Cedric's cool cheek against his rapidly warming one. He could feel Cedric's long eyelashes flutter closed against the delicate skin of his temples.

"I love this song," Cedric said softly.

"You know it?" Harry asked.

"Never heard it before," Cedric replied, and felt Harry smile. The two kept dancing, both feeling the heat of the other's skin through the thin cotton of their school shirts. Harry was certain that Cedric could feel his heartbeat, they were so close.

"I have another question," Harry said, not really wanting to break the silence but knowing he had to. They didn't separate.

"Mm?"

"How do you know when to kiss the person you're dancing with?"

"It's difficult to tell... You just know when to, you can sense it. When the moment's right."

Harry moved from Cedric's cheek, looking him in the eye. "Like now?" he asked, softly.

Cedric stopped dancing. "Yeah, just like now."

He wrapped his arms around Harry's waist and felt Harry move his arms to around Cedric's neck. Neither knew who leaned in first, but neither cared. Their lips brushed against each other and it was so incredibly unlike anything else either had experienced. Harry experimentally moved his lips against Cedric's, which were warm and soft and the sensation made him feel like there were butterflies fluttering in his stomach in a way that was not entirely unpleasant, as well as making him feel a bit ill, as thoughts raced through his head, thoughts that he knew he needed but didn't want to acknowledge. _He's going out with Cho, I __fancy__**Cho**__, not Cedric._ They didn't appear to affect him too much, as the embrace lasted throughout the guitar solo Harry had vague recollections of Dudley pretending to play on a tennis racquet.

When they eventually parted, Cedric looked concernedly at Harry. "You okay?" he asked, blue eyes gazing into green ones.

"Yeah, fine it's just... Wow," Harry breathed, feeling the butterflies swoop and swirl in his stomach, any sickness gone. Cedric laughed and the sound of his laugh prompted Harry to wrap his arms around Cedric's neck tighter, drawing him closer, pulling him in for a second deeper, more passionate kiss. He felt Cedric's tongue slip into his mouth and, heart racing, completely unsure of what he was doing, massaged his tongue against Cedric's. After finding the initial sensation very odd and off-putting, he began to feel more comfortable and found himself moving one of his hands from Cedric's neck to his hair, running his hands through the dark curls. This was greeted by a groan from Cedric, who pulled Harry in even closer and ran his hands down Harry's side before moving them to the back of his neck. Harry groaned into Cedric's mouth but reluctantly pulled away from his lips.

"The, um, the music's stopped," he said, breathlessly.

"I think we're beyond worrying about whether the music's stopped," the 7th year replied, voice wavering slightly from the ripples of lust he hadn't quite satisfied. He gently traced Harry's jawline with his thumb, and Harry closed his eyes and leaned in for a final, tender kiss, the last kiss they would ever share.

Upon listening to the song, three months after Cedric's death, he began to see how it was fitting that that song had accompanied their first and last dance and their only three kisses. Harry didn't ever want to dance with anyone the way he'd danced with Cedric. He didn't ever want to kiss anyone the way he'd kissed Cedric. He didn't ever want to love anyone the way he'd loved Cedric during those three blissful kisses.


End file.
